At times, love hurts. In Clifton Best’s case scenario, it stings. A lot.

Best loves honey bees, and any relationship with these life-giving insects comes at the cost of the occasional sting. For Best and the 50 other members of Brevard Backyard Beekeepers, it is a small price to pay for insects that do so much for humankind.

Western honey bees, domesticated for their abilities to produce honey and pollinate crops, are Mother Nature’s most beneficial bug, pollinating a good third of the food crops consumed around the world. Without honey bees, we’d be in deep trouble, but honey bees are in deep trouble, primarily due to colony collapse, caused by changes in agricultural practices coupled with unpredictable weather. Do the math.

Clifton Best is president and founder of the Brevard Backyard Beekeepers Inc. and owns CL Best ...more

Clifton Best is president and founder of the Brevard Backyard Beekeepers Inc. and owns CL Best Honey Bees. He also does professional bee removal service. Clifton by a Langstroth hive on his property.

MALCOLM DENEMARK/FLORIDA TODAY

Man needs to step up to the plate and help these highly beneficial insects, say the members of Brevard Backyard Beekeepers, who are doing their part by hosting a special free event to celebrate National Honey Bee Day on Saturday, Aug. 19. The day includes a live honey extraction with fresh---and free---local honey samples for the first 50 participants.

Master gardeners will discuss bee-friendly and native gardening practices to support honey bees. The program also includes information on Brevard Zoo’s conservation programs, vendors, Brevard Botanical Garden tours and plant sale and food and children’s activities.

Clifton Best is president and founder of the Brevard Backyard Beekeepers Inc. and owns CL Best ...more

Clifton Best is president and founder of the Brevard Backyard Beekeepers Inc. and owns CL Best Honey Bees. He also does professional bee removal service. Clifton stands by a top-bar hive with a swarm of bees he had just removed for someone Monday morning.

MALCOLM DENEMARK/FLORIDA TODAY

The UF/IFAS Extension Brevard County Center, 3695 Lake Drive, Cocoa, will be abuzz with bee-related activities from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. that Sunday. The free event aims to educate all ages about honey bees’ critical role in the global economy, food security and environmental health.

Should you consider the joys of beekeeping, Best and the other beekeepers will be on hand with tips to get you started.

Best’s interest in bees grew from a book on homesteading. He got himself a box of bees (approximately 15,000 bees) and was soon immersed in the fascinatingly complex culture of these tiny creatures. He also attended the University of Florida’s Bee College, an intensive four-day curriculum on all things apian.

Clifton Best is president and founder of the Brevard Backyard Beekeepers Inc. and owns CL Best ...more

Clifton Best is president and founder of the Brevard Backyard Beekeepers Inc. and owns CL Best Honey Bees. He also does professional bee removal service. A swarm of bees that Clifton removed from a location earlier Monday.

MALCOLM DENEMARK/FLORIDA TODAY

Bees have been good to Best, a former construction superintendent who segued from hobbyist to professional a few hives later. His business, CL Best Honey Bees in Rockledge, keeps him busy with the honey he sells and with the humane bee removal requests he fields daily.

Getting rid of bees in other homes provides Best with a continuous supply of bees for the 20 hives he keeps at land he owns in Canaveral Groves, as well as the three colonies he maintains in his backyard in Rockledge.

Best admits beekeepers are a special bunch. Most people want bees out rather than in their yards.

Clifton Best is president and founder of the Brevard Backyard Beekeepers Inc. and owns CL Best ...more

Clifton Best is president and founder of the Brevard Backyard Beekeepers Inc. and owns CL Best Honey Bees. He also does professional bee removal service. Some of the products the group has, honey and beeswax,

MALCOLM DENEMARK/FLORIDA TODAY

“People, when they call me, they want them gone now,” said Best, founder and president of Brevard Backyard Beekeepers.

While they may not want the bees, the folks who call Best do so because they know that these humane removal services will move the insects to other locations where they can continue their important work.

“Honey bees are not out to get people,” Best said. “They’re just doing their own thing.”

Honey bees have gotten a bad rap for aggressiveness, thanks to the cranky Africanized bee, aka killer bee, ready to attack if it perceives a threat. When doing bee removal, just by the welcome he receives, Best immediately knows whether the hive is populated by these grumpy individuals, versus the kinder, gentler western honey bees.

Africanized bee hives develop when Africanized bees cross-breed with the western variety when the western queen goes on her mating flight.

Clifton Best is president and founder of the Brevard Backyard Beekeepers Inc. and owns CL Best ...more

Clifton Best is president and founder of the Brevard Backyard Beekeepers Inc. and owns CL Best Honey Bees. He also does professional bee removal services. Clifton with a smoker full of pine needles, in the background is a top-bar hive with a awarm of bees from a removal he did earlier in the day.

MALCOLM DENEMARK/FLORIDA TODAY

“The western bees pick up the bad genetics and that’s where you get the aggressive behavior,” Best said.

Fortunately, Best and other bee removers have an easy answer.

“We kill the Africanized queen and give them a new queen with good genetics,” he explained. “In 90 days, the problem clears up.”

Honey bees live only about six weeks, so the queen is kept busy forever laying 1,500 eggs a daily, up to a million in her lifetime of one to three years. When on the prowl, she throws morals to the wind and mates with 18 or 20 drones, who, by the way die while mating, but at least die happy. After this wild weekend, the queen, set for life, heads back to the hive and never leaves again.

If you want your kids to eat their veggies, warn them about what happens to bees that don’t eat properly.

“An egg can become a queen or a worker based on diet,” Best said.

Feed the egg copies amounts of honey, pollen and nectar and it develops ovaries and becomes a queen, a pampered, important creature. Feed it sparingly, and it becomes a worker bee, a sterile female destined to a life of toil.

Clifton Best is president and founder of the Brevard Backyard Beekeepers Inc. and owns CL Best ...more

Clifton Best is president and founder of the Brevard Backyard Beekeepers Inc. and owns CL Best Honey Bees. He also does professional bee removal service. Bees fly around Clifton as he poses by a top-bar hive full of bees from a removal he did earlier in the day.

MALCOLM DENEMARK/FLORIDA TODAY

Best, who often eschews protective gear when doing bee removals during Brevard’s blistering days, has been stung way more than he can count, but considering the thousands and thousands and thousands of bees he handles, most bees seem to sense he is a friend, not a foe.

“We have a mutual agreement,” Best said. “I play nice and they place nice.”

For more information on bees and beekeeping, contact Best at 321-759-5111 or see brevardbackyardbeekeepers.com.